Saturday, January 17, 2009

And the 5 you may not have heard before…

Under-eatingMore often than not when a client first comes to see me and shows me their food journal, I say, “You are not eating enough.” This couldn't be worse to preventing your weight loss goals from happening. Not only does it send your metabolism into hibernation, it sets people up to binge eat at the end of the day. The key is finding a balance throughout the day of eating the right amount of food.“Fat Free” is wrongI often see diet foods, especially salad dressings, labeled “Fat-Free”, which means the food manufacturer most likely replaced the fat with sugar. Instead of making a diet food they have made a diet sabotage. Fat is good, fat is our friend, and most often dietary fat is not what makes us fat. And salad dressing is a great chance to add in that fat. Salad with a protein source (chicken, salmon) makes a figure-friendly meal.

Too much fruitA diet to some people means turning their breakfast into a lonely piece of fruit. Consuming large amounts of fruit can throw off any well-intentioned dieter from the road to success. Fruit is a carbohydrate, more specifically; it contains a sugar called fructose. Fructose enters different metabolic pathways in the body than glucose and excess amounts can cause serious health conditions (obesity, heart disease, insulin resistance). Take a closer look at the labels of what you eat, even your “healthy” cereal or yogurt, and you will be surprised at how much fructose is making its way into your body. As far as fruit the best types are berries, apples, and citrus; and should be consumed either in the morning or after a workout.Complete protein source at every mealQuite possibly the most effective diet trick is eating a complete source of protein at every meal. And by complete I mean your choices are meat, poultry, fish, eggs, or whey. For those who don’t consume animal products, that is a whole other topic completely. Why is protein so necessary? Simply stated, lean protein speeds up your metabolism and quiets your appetite. The thermic effect of protein is responsible for getting our metabolism furnaces burning, meaning that we burn more calories from 100kcal of chicken breast than we would from eating 100kcal of bread. All calories are not created equal!

Stop doing so much cardio!Let me start off by giving you an example of two girls, Holly and Molly. Holly and Molly are twins, with the same height and weight (130lbs) and the same percentage of body fat (30%). Holly chooses a workout program consisting of weight training 3x/week and 2 days of interval training or sprints. Molly decides to join a spinning class 2x/week and runs at a steady state another 3 days/week. At the end of 6 weeks, both girls lost 5lbs. But lets take a closer look, Holly’s body fat is 25% and Molly’s body fat is 32%! What happened?? Simple, Holly reduced body fat and gained lean body mass. Molly’s endurance training and lack of strength training caused her to lose lean body mass - so even though she lost weight - she got fatter! The type of training you do will make a huge difference, besides the number on the scale, it’s about how you look in your skivvies.